The Buffalo Sabres defenseman returned after a six-game absence due to injury. All he did was score the game-tying goal on the way to a 3-2 shootout win against Carolina.
BUFFALO — We haven’t yet gotten to see the very best of Owen Power in a Buffalo Sabres uniform, but we’ve gotten to see how much their defensive unit misses him when he’s out of action due to injury.
What we saw Sunday night in the Buffalo Sabres 3-2 shootout win against the Carolina Hurricanes in Power’s return to the lineup after missing six games with an upper-body injury was some of the very best of what he’s capable of.
“(Power was) incredible, I thought he was great,” Sabres coach Don Granato said. “He played 20-plus minutes, scored a goal, but he was really good all the way through. Sometimes when a guy’s out, you don’t see him, and you miss him. I can tell you, on the bench, there were lots of moments where you’re like, ‘Oof, is it nice to have him in the lineup.’”
In a game where there were more than a few fantastic performances from the Sabres (Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen, Rasmus Dahlin, Peyton Krebs, Jeff Skinner), it’s hard not to look at how Power played in his return and how important he is to the lineup and the future of the Sabres.
Now that the Sabres are, at last, on an actual winning streak with their third straight victory, let’s dig into what helped make it happen against Carolina.
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Power returning on Sunday was a mild surprise. He hadn’t yet been cleared for game action, but was a full participant at the morning skate, although he didn’t take part in the power play exercises. But Power was cleared after the morning practice and was ready to go for the game.
Even though he’d missed six games, being ready to face the Hurricanes was more about timing and speed than anything else.
“The legs were kind of the least of my worry,” Power said. “Just kind of thinking the game was more so harder when you come back, especially when you don’t have much practice time to kind of get that feel back. So, obviously it wasn’t the sharpest at the start, but I think it got better as the game went on.”
The start he’s referring to is how he was on the ice for the first goal of the game 2:40 into the first period when Tony DeAngelo deposited the puck past Luukkonen after some brilliant tic-tac-toe passing from Martin Necas and Michael Bunting down low. This whole thing started with some tough plays from Erik Johnson both in the offensive end and then not stopping the puck up high in the defensive zone and getting caught forcing everyone else to slide their coverage. DeAngelo filled the void in the slot and got a virtual gimmie. Tough play and a tough break and yet another first goal allowed by the Sabres.
Power’s advanced numbers were decent considering they were trying to manage his minutes and matchups more. At 5-on-5 he had a 51.1 percent CorsiFor and although his 43.0 expected goals-for percentage isn’t particularly shiny, he and Johnson haven’t done too well as a pairing this season. If anything, the expected goal numbers fall in line with how it’s usually gone. It may be unsurprising to hear Power has done better away from the veteran than with him. Having him work with Johnson made sense for his first game back to give him a veteran to help him, but it’s not a pairing that should stay together too much longer.
The Sabres didn’t take time to mope about being down at home yet again. If nothing else, Carolina’s two goals against them proved to be moments that got them to stiffen their upper lips and get it back.
It took until the second period for Buffalo to tie it when Skinner got his customary pound of flesh against his former team with a power play goal. Skinner buried a rebound from a slap shot blast from the point by Dylan Cozens by Hurricanes goalie Spencer Martin. In 13 career games against Carolina, Skinner has seven goals and six assists (13 points).
“They don’t give up much,” Skinner said. “But I think with that patience you still have to have your foot on the gas. I think that we did a good job of that. Unless you continually come after them, they’re not going to give up anything or hurt themselves. They’re a good team and in order for us to score, obviously we needed to sustain some O-zone pressure and I thought we did a good job of that especially towards the end of the game.”
The third period got spicy, particularly with Rasmus Dahlin. He was involved in net crashes at both ends of the ice that resulted in penalties against him. He picked off Jordan Martinook in front of his own net just over seven minutes into the third that got everyone’s dander up. Seven minutes later, Dahlin collided with Martin, bowling the Carolina goalie over. On replay, he appeared to have been pushed from behind by Bunting, but Dahlin was whistled for goaltender interference.
That penalty did not sit well with Buffalo. It sat even worse for them when Necas blasted home a power play goal with 5:18 to play in the period.
The goal against, in previous games this season, more often than not would’ve resulted in frustration boiling up enough to suck the air out of the room, particularly at home. But not tonight, because Krebs and Power teamed up to get the goal right back with Power stepping into the slot and getting a super feed from Krebs for the tying goal with 4:05 to go.
“I thought is we responded very well when we gave up the penalty-kill goal against,” Granato said. “I think we were frustrated at the call originally, and then frustrated even more that it went in the net. And we funneled it the right way. We elevated our compete instantly. And you got a goal within a minute later. So, I felt we had a level of patience to start. I thought we could have been much more aggressive to start. I thought, possibly we gave the group on the other side a little bit too much respect at times. But not after that frustration. And loved the compete from that point. And the way we elevated.”
Power getting the goal, his third of the season, resulted in an emotional celebration from the second-year defenseman. That goal came off a feed from Krebs having the youthful line with him, Zach Benson and JJ Peterka together, a trio that’s been superb since they were put together just over a week ago. Granato praised Krebs’ vision to get it to Power, but lauded Benson’s play to get the entire situation set up.
In overtime, as we’ve seen around the league in 3-on-3, there wasn’t a lot going on, but whatever did go on was of the hold-your-breath variety of opportunities with stops being made by both Martin and Luukkonen.
The shootout settled everything and that turned into a moment for Power to show the way and for Luukkonen to shut the door. Mittelstadt was the only player to score in the shootout and did so in the fourth round, when he beat Martin with a forehand shot.
“Honestly, I was kind of lucky OP went before me, because I do a pretty similar move to OP, (and) kind of stole it from him,” Mittelstadt said. “So, yeah, I saw (Martin) was coming out really far on the first few and just tried to make him move laterally, and I think I felt like I outwaited him and had a little net to shoot at it. So definitely good to see it go in.”
Power went second in the shootout was stopped on his attempt. It was the first time he hasn’t scored in the skills competition this season. For a guy who doesn’t score a ton of goals, his shootout move(s) have been very effective. Full marks to Spencer Martin for changing the pressure on the shooters by coming out to the hashmarks to challenge the shooters. Tage Thompson, Power, Alex Tuch, and Mittelstadt all had a turn, but it was Casey who got the only tally.
Luukkonen stopped each of Sebastian Aho, Andrei Svechnikov, Necas, and Teuvo Teravainen – a relative murder’s row of shooters to provide the win. In all, Luukkonen made 30 saves through 65 minutes (as did Martin for that matter) and held it down for Buffalo yet again.
“It’s been awesome,” Mittelstadt said of Luukkonen. “I think we’re all extremely happy for him. We’ve seen how hard he works and how hard he fights, obviously, in practice and just in general, the kind of person he is. I think I speak for everyone when we say we absolutely love playing in front of him.”
We’d be remiss if we didn’t discuss Dahlin. It was another game with more than 29 minutes of ice time (a staggering 31:43 in this case) and when you log that kind of time, you’re going to see a lot of action, naturally. You just don’t usually see this kind of action. Via NaturalStatTrick.com, Dahlin was on the ice for 45 shot attempts for and 28 against (61.6 percent CorsiFor) and a 50.7 percent expected goals-for mark. Whew buddy that’s a busy game, but 45 attempts for is wild.
“He’s amazing,” Granato said. “He’s never not giving you everything he has. He’s emptying the tank every shift, and that’s impressive and that’s what the rest of our crew and guys need to see. I think he’s a great role model for the entire group of how to play and give everything you have at very highly competitive level.”
Winning three games in a row for the first time shouldn’t be such a big deal. After all, it’s February 25th and the Sabres are 58 games into the season, and they finally did it. But they’re a team playing better, certainly much better defensively and in goal, but a team that’s gotten out of their own heads when they’ve come up against hardship. Instead of the “woe is us” mentality, they’ve gotten rather pissed off instead.
Apart from saying, “It’s about time,” it’s just good to see this kind of fight out of the group. That’s not to say they haven’t been fighting, but now they’re playing with better purpose and more control to their game and their collective psyche. They’re at .500 again for the first time in a while and even though the thought of the postseason is still a bit of a pipe dream at this point, it’s not dead.
If they continue to play like this, it might be frustrating because you’ll be left asking “where was this all year!?” but all these processes they’ve been going through as a team and all the injuries and all everything have to lead to somewhere eventually. If it all shows up now with under 30 games to go, it would be quite frustrating but also something to carry them forth for seasons to come.
Ideally, anyway.